I think my table saw just gave up. It is a 20 year old Craftsman contractor saw. I have had problems with the motor before but I think it is really gone this time. It has other problems as well.

I would like to put my money into a new one rather than fixing this one. I am very limited on space. I have to move everything against the garage wall when I am done. So I would like a small one, high accuracy and dust collection port. The benchtop models I have seen are just not very good. The modeler saws are very accurate but really too small. Conventional cabinet saws are way too big. Contractor saws are usually too big, not particularly accurate and no dust collection port. From what I have seen of them. The Hybrids are too big for what I want as well.

Any suggestions? Anyone using a small table saw for guitar building that I should look into?Thanks,Eddie

The small Inca 10" 250 Tablesaw, 259 Tablesaw-Mortiser still have a strong following and plenty pop up in the used market on Craigslist. Jesse at Eagle Tools in Los Angeles also has a handful ready to sell most times and has all of the parts you could need. They are the smallest, most precise, most powerful saws I know about and were way ahead of their time with some of the features they offer.

The older Ryobi BT3000s http://www.bt3central.com/forum.php are also very popular and there are many DIY aftermarket jigs and improvements you can do to them to make them very precise and work around some of their issues. They are limited in power so ripping thick, hard Maple will be a challenge.

You could also go without a tablesaw and use a guided circular saw. Festool, Dewalt, Makita and Hilti all have systems along with the EasyZone where you supply your own saw. I use a Festool TS-55, Sawguides and one of their MFT1080 benches to do 100% of my rough edge ripping, sheetgoods breakdown, cross cutting and mitering and only use my tablesaw for rips and Dados and thick stock machining. 2" stock is a limiting factor with the TS-55 but minus that I could lose my Unisaw tomorrow and not miss it...wel...other than the big horizontal place to put junk. I would miss that.

The small Inca 10" 250 Tablesaw, 259 Tablesaw-Mortiser still have a strong following and plenty pop up in the used market on Craigslist. Jesse at Eagle Tools in Los Angeles also has a handful ready to sell most times and has all of the parts you could need. They are the smallest, most precise, most powerful saws I know about and were way ahead of their time with some of the features they offer.

The older Ryobi BT3000s http://www.bt3central.com/forum.php are also very popular and there are many DIY aftermarket jigs and improvements you can do to them to make them very precise and work around some of their issues. They are limited in power so ripping thick, hard Maple will be a challenge.

You could also go without a tablesaw and use a guided circular saw. Festool, Dewalt, Makita and Hilti all have systems along with the EasyZone where you supply your own saw. I use a Festool TS-55, Sawguides and one of their MFT1080 benches to do 100% of my rough edge ripping, sheetgoods breakdown, cross cutting and mitering and only use my tablesaw for rips and Dados and thick stock machining. 2" stock is a limiting factor with the TS-55 but minus that I could lose my Unisaw tomorrow and not miss it...wel...other than the big horizontal place to put junk. I would miss that.

I love my DeWalt contractor saw. It has a dust collection port. And with a bit of time setting it up is accurate enough. I store mine under a work bench on the side of my garage. I liked the fact that the fense keys onto the rail so I can quickly put it on and be sure it is square to the blade. Also as the fense is keyed the tape measure on the rail is fairly accurate when I am making quick cuts.

I know it isn't what you asked for, but if I were starting from scratch, was going to only do guitars, and probably get most of my wood already cut to size from luthiery suppliers like John or Bob, I don't think I'd get a table saw. I'd put the money into a better bandsaw. My bandsaw does almost everything my tablesaw does (certainly luthiery related). Not always as quickly or accurately, but it gets the job done and I feel it is much safer.

Oh wait, I do use the tablesaw for cutting fret slots, but there are good jigs for doing that by hand. I think most suppliers will do it for a modest fee.

I'd have to agree with Mike. Get a good bandsaw and get good at jointing. I have a 4" grizzly jointer/planer I LOVE. I have a ryobi 10" contractors saw which sucks. Whatever you do, do not get anything with a plastic body. My saw motor and armature are mounted to the plastic body, so cutting anything over 1.5" thick, the blade starts moving all over the place. Impossible to get a straight cut, might as well have used a band saw. I thought it was poor setup, tried running through so slow I was burning as much as I was cutting. FInally had someone else run some wood through and could see the sides of the saw support box flexing. Ridiculous! There's nothing in guitar making I can think of that a good band saw and planer couldn't do.

Wow, I use my table saw all the time making cauls, jigs, etc. I used it 2 days ago and cut out some hard, flat sanding blocks from plywood. Also used the table saw to taper the sides of the headstock on my neck. If you build a neck from scratch, I wouldn't want to do that without a table saw. Same for cutting out neck/tail blocks, squaring off sides/backs after resawing them from boards. Making jigs is where I would really miss my table saw. I just have an old Delta contractor saw I bought new in the early '90s.

A gentlemen named Haans posted over on the OLF that he bought a small used table saw that he just loves. He had to tune it but now he uses it to make really nice purfling logs. You might search there for posts with the word "table saw" with him as the author. I can't recall the brand but it sure sounded nice.

Edit to add: I found it. It is a Proxxon brand table saw. Here is a link to the post:

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